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An invitation for teachers, pupils, students

An invitation for teachers, pupils, students

Within the Erasmus+ project, which started in November 2020, based on the MOOC formula, the Check&Design course was produced. Digital Information Literacy and collaborative learning at school. The course (initially in English and Italian) from September 2023 has been enriched with variants in Spanish, Portuguese and Albanian.

MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are courses that are offered to the public for free, are open to everyone, serve distance learning and enable massive participation from different geographical and cultural spaces. They are an incredible new opportunity for students and docents. In particular, the Check&Design MOOC, which will be valid on the dedicated EduOpen platform (https://learn.eduopen.org/) until September 2024, bears the signature of CREMIT (in the original language: Centro di Ricerca sull 'Educazione ai Media all'Innovazione e alla Tecnologia) and supported by ILAB.

Cremit - the Research Center for Media Education, Innovation and Technology - was created as a natural result of a vigorous, serious work of a working group and a research program that has been consolidated over the years, enough to officially become a research center at the University Catholic Sacro Cuore, Milan. This center supports schools, for the training of teachers and students, offers didactic and educational interventions in classrooms related to issues of media education and Information and Communication Technology.

Didactic formula of the course:

Check&Design is an online course, open to all and free of charge, dedicated to the topic of Information Literacy and designed to strengthen the skills of those interested (those who would like to register) to recognize fake news (fake news), to track information sources and to understand the process of spreading information: all this will be realized through work on content in digital environments. The course, the course guide is addressed to the category of secondary school teachers with the relevant classes, educators, and all those interested in the subject of Information Literacy. This MOOC is a freely accessible didactic resource.

Each module includes video-lectures, thematic resources, e-tivities (online learning activities): these activities are proposals that can be very well adapted for use in the classroom, in home conditions and in other educational contexts. The course also offers digital materials to delve into different topics; a test is provided at the end of each module.

threads

The MOOC operates by relying on the competencies of reading, selecting and creating information in the current digital context. Its main purpose is to enable students to reflect and work concretely on the topic of fake news, to find the source of information, to understand the process of news dissemination and to promote a responsible use of the Internet. The 6 modules of the course provide students with resources and tools to act in four areas: 1) Reflection on information and on the ways in which digital affects the concept of information; 2) Online search; 3) Evaluation of data, information and digital content; 4) Participation and concrete activity in digital environments in the capacity of content producers (in the role known by the term prosumer). In more detail, through the arguments that will be offered on a weekly basis, the MOOC aims to promote in-depth knowledge about the following topics: Media and news; algorithm; web search; copyright; resources; online participation.

The materials of the modules will all be online and at the moment of entry, those enrolled in the course will have the opportunity to see the panorama of the materials, examine the resources and carry out the activities asynchronously, accumulating a total of 25 hours of formative activities. The self-paced formula allows the trainees to follow their own pace of work and complete the proposed activities according to the possibilities and conditions of each one. For registration, go to the following link:

https://learn.eduopen.org/eduopenv2/course_details.php?courseid=515

This course, which has also been made possible in the Albanian language thanks to the proposal and cooperation with CREMIT researchers, is simultaneously a resource, an instrument and a concrete opportunity for all users who will want to use the resource in the Albanian language. At the time when the term "literacy" no longer refers only to the learning of writing and reading, education with the multitude of discourses that require reading, interpretation and production (the possibility to become producers of messages) is fundamental.

Technologies themselves are both a problem and a great opportunity. The quality of mediation between the technology and the user makes the difference. Therefore, this course addressed to teachers, students and educators in general offers everyone an opportunity to fulfill, as time demands, the obligation to convey the cultural heritage, to build citizenship. Knowing and using different discourses is a necessary competence for exercising critical thinking and active citizenship.